Though CNN has surely and profoundly erred by denying America its weekly (or fortnightly) Kate O’Beirne fix, did the network really have to conclude the run of “Capital Gang” as it did — by offering footage of the behind-the-scenes prep for the show set to the tune of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”? You know, the song that goes, “We were born before the wind/
Also younger than the sun/
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic/
Hark, now hear the sailors cry/
Smell the sea and feel the sky/
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.” Yes sir, watching Al Hunt and Margaret Carlson agree on the latest mind-deadening conventional wisdom truly had about it the air of The Eternal.
That was truly one of the silliest sequences I’ve ever seen on television. If there were ever a show less mystical than “Capital Gang,” I don’t know what it could be — except maybe for this one.